1. Field of the Invention
The disclosed embodiments relate to a method and apparatus for messaging and in particular to a private messaging system.
2. Related Art
In many instances it may desirable for an individual to confidentially provide information to a third party or to provide a message to a third party. The confidentiality may relate to financial data, personal information, passwords, photos, videos, or any other private message. While existing messaging systems may seem private to users, in reality, these existing methods for communication are not private.
In the case of email, it is well known that this message is not entirely private because the sent message remains on the sender's computer and also remains on the machine of the message recipient. This allows anyone to view the message simply by viewing the sender or recipient's machine (inbox or outbox) or by a hacker gaining illegal access to the machine to view the message. In addition, a copy of the message may be stored on an exchange server, and therefore may be obtained from the exchange server. Furthermore, the sender of the message is revealed to the recipient, thereby preventing the message sender from being anonymous, and the text is also viewable. SMS or text messages suffer from many of the same drawbacks because such messages remain on the mobile phone of the sender and recipient.
Traditional voice calls may be used to communicate, but the sender or caller must talk out loud, thereby allowing others around them to hear the message who may then remember and/or write down the content. If the message is personal or highly confidential, speaking the information out loud is not desirable. In addition, for many messages, it is not possible or desirable to speak to the other person when the message needs to be sent.